Vladimir Putin seems to have lost touch with reality, Angela Merkel reportedly
told Barack Obama after speaking with the Russian president. He is “in another
world.”

“I agree with what Angela Merkel said … that he is in another world,” said
Madeleine Albright, “It doesn’t make any sense.”

John Kerry made his contribution to the bonkers theory by implying that Putin
was channeling Napoleon: “You don’t just, in the 21st century, behave in 19th
century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext.”

Now that Putin has taken Crimea without firing a shot, and 95 percent of a
Crimean electorate voted Sunday to reunite with Russia, do his decisions still
appear irrational?

Was it not predictable that Russia, a great power that had just seen its neighbor
yanked out of Russia’s orbit by a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev, would move to protect
a strategic position on the Black Sea she has held for two centuries?

Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Putin is out to recreate the czarist empire.
Others say Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union and Soviet Empire.

But why would Russia, today being bled in secessionist wars by Muslim terrorists
in the North Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, want to
invade and reannex giant Kazakhstan, or any other Muslim republic of the old
USSR, which would ensure jihadist intervention and endless war?

If we Americans want out of Afghanistan, why would Putin want to go back into
Uzbekistan? Why would he want to annex Western Ukraine where hatred of Russia
dates back to the forced famine of the Stalin era?

To invade and occupy all of Ukraine would mean endless costs in blood and money
for Moscow, the enmity of Europe, and the hostility of the United States. For
what end would Russia, its population shrinking by half a million every year,
want to put Russian soldiers back in Warsaw?

But if Putin is not a Russian imperialist out to re-establish Russian rule
over non-Russian peoples, who and what is he?

In the estimation of this writer, Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne
ethnonationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians
abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his
legitimate concern.

Consider the world Putin saw, from his vantage point, when he took power after
the Boris Yeltsin decade.

He saw a Mother Russia that had been looted by oligarchs abetted by Western
crony capitalists, including Americans. He saw millions of ethnic Russians left
behind, stranded, from the Baltic states to Kazakhstan.

He saw a United States that had deceived Russia with its pledge not to move
NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army would move out, and then exploited
Russia’s withdrawal to bring NATO onto her front porch.

Had the neocons gotten their way, not only the Warsaw Pact nations of Central
and Eastern Europe, but five of 15 republics of the USSR, including Ukraine
and Georgia, would have been brought into a NATO alliance created to contain
and, if need be, fight Russia.

What benefits have we derived from having Estonia and Latvia as NATO allies
that justify losing Russia as the friend and partner Ronald Reagan had made
by the end of the Cold War?

We lost Russia, but got Rumania as an ally? Who is irrational here?

Cannot we Americans, who, with our Monroe Doctrine, declared the entire Western
Hemisphere off limits to the European empires – “Stay on your side of the Atlantic!”
– understand how a Russian nationalist like Putin might react to U.S. F-16s
and ABMs in the eastern Baltic?

In 1999, we bombed Serbia for 78 days, ignoring the protests of a Russia that
had gone to war for Serbia in 1914. We exploited a Security Council resolution
authorizing us to go to the aid of endangered Libyans in Benghazi to launch
a war and bring down the Libyan regime.

We have given military aid to Syrian rebels and called for the ouster of a
Syrian regime that has been Russia’s ally for decades.

That was before Putin, whose approval is now at 72 percent because he is perceived
as having stood up to the Americans and answered our Kiev coup with his Crimean
counter coup.

America and Russia are on a collision course today over a matter – whose flag
will fly over what parts of Ukraine – no Cold War president, from Truman to
Reagan, would have considered any of our business.

If the people of Eastern Ukraine wish to formalize their historic, cultural
and ethnic ties to Russia, and the people of Western Ukraine wish to sever all
ties to Moscow and join the European Union, why not settle this politically,
diplomatically and democratically, at a ballot box?

I'm on Vlad Putin's side in this "crisis." He's asserting Russian interests in his own area of the world. And–naturally–the criminally meddlesome U.S. Government provoked it by helping to overthrow Ukraine's lawful government.

Ever hear of the Law of Unintended Consequences? The U.S. had better watch its step, or a Russian ICBM could implode on Washington, District of Corruption. . . .

flickervertigo

the sequence is kinda interesting…

PNAC neocons say they need a new pearl harbor in september of 2000… they say they intend to establish global hegemony by using "full spectrum dominance"

then there's a recount of the 2000 election in florida… governed by a PNAC signatory, and the PNAC / AEI boys and girls take power

meanwhile, russia is cracking down on russian neocons… gusinsky, the media guy, fled to israel before 9/11

that's bad news for neocons… they're counting on russian oil while they tear up the middle east and remodel it to israeli/necon specifications

neocon aggression continues and putin defends himself… he's been watching… he's unconvinced of the 'benevolence" of the neocons' "benevolent global hegemony"… but when he defends himself from neocon benevolence, he's the bad guy

pathetic neocon doublething

outsider

It's an easy call to be on President Putin's side on this one. Ever since President Obama chose to put the LGBT issue over diplomacy by refusing to attending the Sochi Olympics, I've been disgusted by his adolescent behavior. Here you have Obama pushing gay rights and US imperialism versus Putin's support of traditional values and the defense of Russia from foreign aggression. The rabid dog USG corporate media cannot spin this debacle past thinking Americans this time.

Thinking Americans, so rare it should be on the endangered species list. Just go to any public discussion forum and you'll know what I mean.

Diesel

Meanwhile, the US government lets its people get attacked without raising a finger. See Medea Benjamin's recent visit to Egypt as just one example. I wish America had a President who looked out for Americans the way Putin looks out for Russians.

flickervertigo

could be medea should refrain from talking about jefferson's fondness for jigs when we got a black president

…but you're right… when i was voerseas, it was "common knowledge" that if you got in a jam, you went to the brit embassy rather than the US embassy…. and that wasalmost 50 years ago

i cant imagine it's gotten any better

flickervertigo

well, okay, it was only 42 years ago

Smithboy

Look at the lasting devastation this country inflicted on Iraq and then compare the violence to the peaceful takeover of Crimea. See any difference?

John V. Walsh

The other wrinkle is that Gregor Gysi leader of opposition in Germany is sharply attacking Merkel for her stance on Ukraine and Crimea. There is opposition in Gemany to the US Empire even though it remains a country occupied by the US.

outsider

When are the proud, industrial German people going to rise up and kick out the thousands of American mercenary troops still stationed there? World War II ended 69 years ago!

Generalissimo X

John Kerry made his contribution to the bonkers theory by implying that Putin was channeling Napoleon: “You don’t just, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext.”

"Strategic position on the Black Sea"? The Black Sea is an enclosed sea. You can't get in or out of it without passing through NATO member Turkey's territorial waters. If Turkey blocked the starits, the Black Sea fleet would be bottled up. In World War I, that's precisely what happened. If Turkey didn't block the straits, a US fleet could sit at the mouth of the Dardanelles and pick off the Russian ships like ducks in a shooting gallery as they came out! And they would come out into the Mediterranean, itself an enclosed sea. The only exits are the Suez canal at one end and the Straits of Gibraltar at the other. Both easy to block. Thus, the Sebastopol naval base would be totally useless in wartime.

dan

Not true. The Black sea is itself a huge body of water. A Russian fleet could block access INTO IT while being able to assist in defense of the coast or engaging in amphibious operations. This was a big concern in WW2 and explains the great siege of Sebastopol. Crimea is connected to Ukraine by just three miles of land and separated from the Russian Kerch peninsula by only the same distance.

I'd guess that when most of the world considers Obama/Kerry vs Putin/Lavrov in terms of who is most irrational, it's not the Russians who win the funny hats and kazoos.

Wordcrunch991

Buchanan has this one down pat !

Watson

I keep hearing that 'the whole world' is condemning the Russians and Crimeans. But I have yet to hear any comments from Latin America (Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean). The nations of Africa seem to be silent on the issue and apparently aren't worried about their national security. What has Japan said? What has SE Asia said? All I hear is the EU and the US. Didn't realize those countries were the 'whole world.'

dan

Just like baseball in America is "the world series". Washington thinks it IS the 'whole world'

Porgy

My god, Kerry is like that embarrassingly idiotic blowhard uncle you avoid talking to at family reunions.

Sam

.Ukraine seems to be culturally divided, orthodox east versus catholic west. Why not do it like in former Tschechoslowakei : to peacefully separate and continue to have good relations.

Watson

Absolutely correct, Sam. Czechoslovakia is a good example of how it can be done.

Bigger Thinking

I am a African American, recently been at one of the places that my company does business with one of the staff answered this question which I placed to him "what do you think about what's happening Ukraine?". He said it's none of our business, then I said to him we are on the same page and the same sentence. Then I said to him what country came and freed us from chattel slavery here in the USA, he said none, then I said but we managed to over time work it out. No foreign intervention just a sense of justice growing for the removal of oppression and brute treatment and a nation called to live up to it's greatest principles. He my follow colleague is an Obama democrat I am a Muslim republican following the Islamic leadership established here in the USA by Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. Go figure, common ground non intervention.

Is anyone else reminded of the U.S. gambit of fomenting the secession of Panama from Columbia in 1903 under the protection of U.S. warships so we could build the Panama Canal to further our military and commercial interests?